A good question is should everyone really be on this forum ? It was started by a man. Admittedly it was just one man but is this forum just another example of the patriarchy ? I don't believe in the patriarchy but can anyone who believes in the patriarchy and equal outcomes really frequent this webpage and/or forum. Should we all up and leave and go to a female run FIRE site ?

LOLOL. So silly. It's a good thing I wasn't drinking anything when I read this.

Why is it silly ?

This is like trying to explain why a joke is funny.

We are talking about how in general men are more likely to fanboy men than women while women do it equally (or that is where we started).

So there is nothing inherently wrong with liking his blog or this forum. The point is that would people equally appreciate a similar blog if a woman was writing it? And we won't know unless someone can go out and dig up a similar blog written by a woman. And even then that is n=1 (here n = # pairs being compared).

"Patriarchy" these days (I'm not a sociologist so I am sure they have a much more complete and accurate definition) is basically shorthand for all the ways that our present society is shaped by the history of privileged men dominating society, to the point that their viewpoint was internalized by everyone. Some things still stand out - abortion laws in the US for one (and so glad Henry Morgentaler bucked Canada's criminal code). Most of it is internalized - why do women picket abortion clinics, when they or their daughters could potentially need abortions? I don't know, but it is a question worth asking, and maybe there are some answers to that one. But basically I would guess that they have internalized the social value that a man's opinion (her husbands or father's) matters more than her own.

The thing is that internalized values are not obvious. I read of a study once where teachers were sure that they were giving equal time to speak up and ask questions in class to all their students, but when classes were videotaped they were consistently giving more time to the boys. They were shocked, it was not what they planned to do or wanted to do. But it was happening. I'm sure sociologists have lots of examples of this, where we have no idea our behaviour has been shaped, but it has been shaped. Sometimes it is obvious. The time I got into absolutely the most trouble with my parents was when I got into a fight with the boy next door. I lost of course, I had no idea how to fight and he did, but he was bullying his sister, my friend (he bullied all his sisters as a matter of course and his parents did nothing about it), and I finally called him on it. I got no sympathy from my parents, girls don't fight. No matter what. And even with all the girls taking martial arts classes, and involved in more active sports, there is a lot more fuss made about sports-related injuries than there is for the boys getting the same injuries. Not because the damage is more, but because somehow our bodies are not supposed to get injured. Even though we can have babies, which is physically and physiologically incredibly difficult. But we are supposed to have babies, we aren't supposed to break a finger in karate or a leg falling out of a tree.

In all seriousness this is really drawing a long long bow to make a point. Some of that stuff I also don't think is true at all. I mean I've never worried about my mum or women in general getting injured more than a man being injured. If I'm not the one injured my care factor is reasonably low.

So there is nothing inherently wrong with liking his blog or this forum. The point is that would people equally appreciate a similar blog if a woman was writing it? And we won't know unless someone can go out and dig up a similar blog written by a woman. And even then that is n=1 (here n = # pairs being compared).

Exactly. So we have to stop seeing the patriarchy everywhere. People get to make their own decisions. We have to accept that the outcome of society is based on lots of individuals making their own decisions. They might make from your point of view the wrong decision but you (feminists) don't get to tell the rest of society that they have to live by their rules.

Which you can prove, with our most beloved math. Lay it on me, I'm ready. Let's get to parsing!

The forum is a part of the society in which we live and is therefore a part of the patriarchy. That's unavoidable. Basically, if you live here, you breathe in all the racism, sexism and every other bias that permeates our air.

We keep it from turning into a tool of the patriarchy by making sure that we acknowledge the existence of sexism and its effects on our society. We should not pretend that sexism does not exist, nor pretend that men are not advantaged in our society. We should know that women who reach the same level of achievement that men reach generally had to scale a number of extra barriers to get there.

By acknowledgement of those simple, obvious facts about our society, we make this forum a more open and welcoming place for everyone to learn about and discuss financial independence. If we pretend sexism doesn't exist, or constantly demand some absurd level of proof regarding something so obvious, we'd make half the population feel like outsiders, and I have no desire to do that.

Toque.

You haven't stated one fact at all. You've stated your highly left wing opinion and tried to state it as a fact. It's not a fact. Prove anything that you stated.

But I see that you like anecdotes, so let's try some anecdotes as regards the idea that feminists have all the power in our society.

Brock Turner was caught raping an unconscious women behind a dumpster. He was sentenced to SIX MONTHS in jail and only served THREE, since the judge didn't want to ruin his life.Bill Clinton undoubtedly sexually harassed several women and his career was fine.Donald Trump clearly, by his own admission, sexually assaulted dozens of teen girls by walking into their dressing room. He's doing fine.Rehtaeh Parsons rapists photographed themselves raping her, but the RCMP didn't feel like investigating, questioning them or examining their phones.CNN anchors lament how bad it's going to be for two football playing rapists, because their raping of an unconscious girl is going to follow them around forever.https://www.thedailybeast.com/cnn-feels-sorry-for-steubenville-rapists-world-cant-believe-its-ears

Oh, but the slightest tinge of accusation destroys a man?In. What. Fucking. World?

I don't know where you're living, but we're all getting tired of this. The facts are there for anyone with an open mind, which you clearly don't have.I, specifically, am getting tired of this sort of thing on the forum.Sexism exists.It permeates our entire world.It is as obvious to an unbiased observer as the rotation of the planet, the changing of the climate and greenness of the grass.It starts with the giant contradictory list of actions a woman must take and not take to avoid rape, lest we all blame her (You stayed out past 11pm? You were alone with a man you'd only met 3 times before? You didn't have a buddy system, a rape whistle, three male relatives and a pitbull accompanying you? Well, then, you must have wanted it!)It goes on through the suicides of men who feel they aren't manly enough because they have emotions they aren't allowed to name and get weary of having to constantly perform the masculinity that society demands of them.It ends with having this same conversation, over and over again, with people like you who stubbornly demand that the grass might be teal, it's cold outside today so global warming is fake, and maybe the earth is flat and NASA faked the moon landing.

It blows my mind how many of my fellow Straight Middle-Aged White Guys (SMAWGs, so close to the Hobbit dragon!) don't see their own privilege. I think they are just afraid of being replaced, or "losing" to women and PoC. It's like SMAWGs have been the collective king of the hill for so long, and they're scared and furious that the end could come NOW, during their lifetime. I mean, after all, what are the odds of that? It's not fair!!

And I guess it's human nature to desperately guard what you think is yours.

I know what it's like to lose. To feel so desperately that you're right, yet to fail nonetheless. It’s frightening. Turns the legs to jelly. I ask you, to what end? Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same. And now, it's here. Or should I say, women and PoC are.

Since I seem to be the bad white man I think I'd add some perspective here. My wife is asian, my kids are clearly half white and half asian. I have friends that are gay including females that are gay. I work with minorities and I am friends with them. I am not one little bit scared of losing anything to women. I'm a big fan of women and minorities having the same opportunities as myself and I see this occurring all the time. My gay female friend has the same job as myself and gets paid more than me. I'm good with it.

Here's another one. A female personal massager, created by an award-winning cutting edge technology team, was awarded a prize at a tech show. And then the show, going against their own judges, rescinded the award AND didn't even allow the massager to be displayed at the tech show. Why? Because of "obscenity". However the same show demos VR pornography as well as female sex robots.

It blows my mind how many of my fellow Straight Middle-Aged White Guys (SMAWGs, so close to the Hobbit dragon!) don't see their own privilege. I think they are just afraid of being replaced, or "losing" to women and PoC. It's like SMAWGs have been the collective king of the hill for so long, and they're scared and furious that the end could come NOW, during their lifetime. I mean, after all, what are the odds of that? It's not fair!!

And I guess it's human nature to desperately guard what you think is yours.

I know what it's like to lose. To feel so desperately that you're right, yet to fail nonetheless. It’s frightening. Turns the legs to jelly. I ask you, to what end? Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same. And now, it's here. Or should I say, women and PoC are.

Since I seem to be the bad white man I think I'd add some perspective here. My wife is asian, my kids are clearly half white and half asian. I have friends that are gay including females that are gay. I work with minorities and I am friends with them. I am not one little bit scared of losing anything to women. I'm a big fan of women and minorities having the same opportunities as myself and I see this occurring all the time. My gay female friend has the same job as myself and gets paid more than me. I'm good with it.

You realize I was quoting Thanos from Avengers: Infinity War, right?

Apologies if I reacted the wrong way. I am part of the patriarchy.

Yep. Yes, you definitely are.

I think that may have been the most self-aware statement he's ever made in this thread.

The forum is a part of the society in which we live and is therefore a part of the patriarchy. That's unavoidable. Basically, if you live here, you breathe in all the racism, sexism and every other bias that permeates our air.

I think at least some of the disagreement in this thread comes from the use of the word "patriarchy".

To start off, the literal meaning of the word has shifted significantly within the last generation (my 1991 American Heritage dictionary does not indicate the current definition as posited by others on this thread), insomuch that it strains from its etymological origins. Even Merriam-Webster's current definition, though admitting the usage here, highlights our same topic of discussion on their website: "Many feminists have claimed that all Western societies are patriarchal—that is, that they systematically enable men to dominate women. But there's plenty of disagreement about how this is done, and the word isn't discussed as often as it used to be."

patriarchy: a system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is traced through the male line.

If you consider how many women take their husband's name when they marry, and how absurd it is for men to take their wife's name instead, and how most people look down on hyphenated last names, I think you'd see the idea of "patriarchy" pretty clearly.

Some churches still do the "Who gives this woman to this man?" stuff, although many have removed that line.

What year was it in the U.S. when women could finally get bank accounts and credit cards without their husbands or fathers co-signing? That's explicitly patriarchal. Do you think the trappings of that society just vapourized when we changed a few laws?

That stuff is still around, implicitly or not, when your employer gets to decide what birth control you get to have and such.

If you consider how many women take their husband's name when they marry, and how absurd it is for men to take their wife's name instead, and how most people look down on hyphenated last names, I think you'd see the idea of "patriarchy" pretty clearly.

Some churches still do the "Who gives this woman to this man?" stuff, although many have removed that line.

What year was it in the U.S. when women could finally get bank accounts and credit cards without their husbands or fathers co-signing? That's explicitly patriarchal. Do you think the trappings of that society just vapourized when we changed a few laws?

That stuff is still around, implicitly or not, when your employer gets to decide what birth control you get to have and such.

Toque.

At what point are these not an issue or at least aren't a dumpster fire at the forefront of societal inequity? In a nutshell, I have a finite amount of empathy and I want to dole it out on high priority issues and not waste it on things largely solved or things that have had the rules changed for the good and many aren't even aware of how unfair it used to be (due to the fairness being taken for granted today with respect to that issue). Birth control is a big one, I'll grant you that. I definitely think it is worthwhile for me to continue to empathize with women over birth control and vote on policies that give women control over their bodies. No qualms with that one at all, let's keep fighting the good fight. But some of these...

In my circle I have several women married to men that did not change their last name at all, a few hyphenated couples, many couples who have hyphenated children, a man who changed his last name to his wife's. Little thought to my knowledge has been given to these "revolutionary" actions. Like, I realize the overall norm may still be to follow the patrilineal naming system but it's definitely becoming more and more common, even outside of professionals who are/were more likely to keep/hyphenate, to do whatever you want with a name. With my wife, we discussed this prior to marriage and she said she liked the ring of my last name more than hers so she wanted to change her name to match mine. Did the patriarchy influence her into this way of thinking and distaste for her own last name? /shrug She doesn't really care. I was open to changing my last name if she really wanted me to but I was more apathetic than anything, meaning default option is to keep as is (for both of us) was just fine. The last name issue just didn't move the needle that much. Would I have been absurd for taking my wife's last name? Cool, slap whatever label you want on that potential action. I would love to hear about a couple that broke up because a man demanded his future spouse take his last name and that request was refused. THAT I would call absurd.

The fact that some churches are sexist when it comes to the institution of marriage is something that will probably never be eradicated - even though more and more wedding ceremonies have nothing to do with religion or even take place in a church. Does it have to be 100% for this subcomponent of the patriarchy to be considered under control? I have never heard it stated that way as like a piece of property for only one person but it sounds plausible it happens somewhere. Usually I hear it asked to both people getting married and the terminology is not as property but more along the lines of supporting the newly established household. IMO, it's just a way to get parents/guardians/other important members involved in the ceremony. If a couple doesn't want sexist language in the ceremony, they should talk it over with their officiant about what they want.

I thank this thread for educating me about the older banking laws that existed that I had no idea about. But again, at what point can you move on? My wife wasn't aware either and there was never an innate desire on my end to wish there were some rules in place to give me more leverage over my wife or a prospective daughter for financial accounts. So, these older laws did exist but they didn't really leave much in the way of evidence to impact our little bubble. Now, surely remnants of the older rules might still affect others in certain ways but it continues to be diminished.

What's the central point of contention here? On one side we have a group of people claiming that there's a complex and insidious system of social norms, expectations, stereotypes, and just-so stories that hampers the full flourishing of women as a class. That group agrees that the system is not a conspiracy and has no leaders; instead, it is self-perpetuating. On the other side we have a group of people claiming that it's self-evident that there can be no such system. They cite various reasons: "I've never noticed it"; "women in my personal and professional sphere seem to be fine"; "math"; and the big winner, "women and men are just naturally different, so of course they'll have different social roles and there's nothing wrong with that because nature."

Let's take a step back even further. Historically, there are many, many examples of societies treating women as a lesser class of human. In all cases, this treatment has been justified by an appeal to "nature." Here's a non-comprehensive list:

1. Women are chattel2. Women's bodies should be available for the purchase of sex3. Women should cover their heads4. Women should leave the neighborhood when they menstruate5. Women should have their clitorises removed6. Women can't own property7. Women can't vote8. Women can't apply for men's jobs9. Women get fired when they get pregnant10. Women routinely face domestic violence11. Women have to see a doctor every year to get birth control12. Women don't have a say in when they can terminate their own pregnancy13. Women are brutalized in violent pornography14. Women are sexually objectified in art and popular culture15. Women are expected to shoulder household work and childcare in intimate relationships

Allowing for differences across centuries and cultures, all of these have been true at some point. Right now, in American society, I'd say that 2 and 10 - 15 are still true.

If you asked your average bro how they can justify, say, 2 or 14 or 15, they would probably produce some garbage evolutionary argument, that men and women are just "like that" and therefore fighting against it is hopeless. But here's the thing: If you asked your average 10th-century bro how they can justify 1 or 3 or 6, they'd say exactly the same thing. Yet, here in the 21st century, we recognize that the 10th-century bros were wrong and there's nothing "natural" or "innate" about women being chattel or being forbidden to own property or go bare-headed. So why, for fuck's sake, do we allow that 21st-century bros have the right of anything at all to suggest that women being exploited for sexual and reproductive and household and emotional labor is somehow "natural" or "innate" and therefore ¯\_(ツ)_/¯? I mean, we've been evolving as a society to treat everyone more equally for centuries, and then all of a sudden we hit 2019 and oops, we're done now, everything's set in stone and must be the inevitable result of millennia of human evolution?

A comment: Please do not react to this by saying something along the lines of "women can vote now!" I know that. That is, in fact, precisely my point.

Again: Do not confuse what is with what should be. They are not the same.

At this point, I have to assume that steveo is purposefully arguing against a straw man that includes a conspiracy of powerful men plotting in the shadows to control the world's culture since I've asked him how he's defining patriarchy twice now and he's failed to provide any kind of explanation for his references to controlling forces/conspiracies.

So you come up with a theory of how social interaction has evolved and try and state it happened because of some factor other than natural evolution. There is some controlling force at work creating the social structure.

What's the central point of contention here? On one side we have a group of people claiming that there's a complex and insidious system of social norms, expectations, stereotypes, and just-so stories that hampers the full flourishing of women as a class. That group agrees that the system is not a conspiracy and has no leaders; instead, it is self-perpetuating. On the other side we have a group of people claiming that it's self-evident that there can be no such system. They cite various reasons: "I've never noticed it"; "women in my personal and professional sphere seem to be fine"; "math"; and the big winner, "women and men are just naturally different, so of course they'll have different social roles and there's nothing wrong with that because nature."

I can only speak for myself, but since I raised the last bolded point and I don't mean it to support the first bolded I want to address.

Again, let me be clear: there have been a zillion examples of how women were oppressed, and though some/most have been lifted, I understand a lot of the effects are still in place. I got it. I certainly agree with it. I do not mean anything I say to dispute it.

But I can only react to what I see. My wife, an educated, successful professional with over a dozen direct reports, works for a huge ($12B+) company. Her boss is a director, she's a woman. Her boss's boss is a VP, also a woman. They work for the CEO, a woman. My wife's salary is roughly on par with my own at a similar level.

Even with all that, my wife has several times expressed that she doesn't love the stress of her job, she doesn't necessarily want more responsibility which will create more stress, and she would rather stay home with our two daughters. Housework doesn't enter that, because we farm most of it out. We save more than half of my wife's salary (will go way up when we stop paying $2k+/mo for child care) with the express purpose of allowing my wife to retire early.

But based on this thread, I'm hearing my wife doesn't really want to stay home, even if she thinks she does. I'm hearing it's society telling her she wants to stay home. I'm hearing that unless she is working at the same level as me, it's the patriarchy, and it's because I don't help out enough around the house or whatever, and if I question any of that, I'm an idiot man denying the patriarchy.

What it really sounds like is an assumption my wife, or many women, don't have free will. I have a hard time reconciling that. I went so far to ask my wife last night if she feels her career has been hamstrung because she was a woman; she told me honestly she felt the opposite, she thought she was hired a couple times because she was a woman, and that her leadership team supports her precisely because she is a high-achieving woman and they want more women to achieve. And she worried that they were going to push her too high and it would ultimately mean she had more responsibility than she wanted to deal with.

So again, when I read that "unless half of business c-suite leaders are women" and I look at my wife who I assume is somewhat typical, I just have a hard time with it. I don't mean to deny anything, I don't mean to minimize anything, I just legitimately feel that she knows more about what she wants than anyone else, and there isn't an ulterior force holding her back. She doesn't have the desire. I do. Most men I know do. Most women I know have at least some inkling that they'd rather be home with their kids all day. Take it for what you will.

Theres a big difference between anecdote and statistics, and I've noticed a few times in this thread men bringing up their wives to show that really women can achieve whatever they want and that what women really want is laid back careers or the ability to stay home and care for kids. We can't ignore the fact that this forum skews towards engineers/higher income/higher education, which would influence the types of women these wives are likely to be. We also can't ignore that if we are all here because of an interest in FIRE then we all want to quit our jobs and retire, so it makes sense that the desire would cross gender lines as well. But these cases, especially the case of chris22's wife, are huge outliers, and do not represent the typical female experience, which is much better represented by statistics which show that large companies are more likely to be run by a "John" than a woman.Feminists don't want women to go pursue careers they dont want. They want women to have the CHOICE to pursue whatever career or lack of career they want, and for men to have the same choice as well, and for neither gender to be held back by assumptions or preconceived notions of what their gender SHOULD want or be good at.Me and my partner would both like to stay home and care for our (future) kids. Plenty of fathers would love to have that option as well. But just as many women don't have equal access and social acceptance to powerful positions, men don't have equal access or social acceptance to being SAHDs. And that's what feminism and ending patriarchy is trying to remedy.

What's the central point of contention here? On one side we have a group of people claiming that there's a complex and insidious system of social norms, expectations, stereotypes, and just-so stories that hampers the full flourishing of women as a class. That group agrees that the system is not a conspiracy and has no leaders; instead, it is self-perpetuating. On the other side we have a group of people claiming that it's self-evident that there can be no such system. They cite various reasons: "I've never noticed it"; "women in my personal and professional sphere seem to be fine"; "math"; and the big winner, "women and men are just naturally different, so of course they'll have different social roles and there's nothing wrong with that because nature."

I can only speak for myself, but since I raised the last bolded point and I don't mean it to support the first bolded I want to address.

Again, let me be clear: there have been a zillion examples of how women were oppressed, and though some/most have been lifted, I understand a lot of the effects are still in place. I got it. I certainly agree with it. I do not mean anything I say to dispute it.

But I can only react to what I see. My wife, an educated, successful professional with over a dozen direct reports, works for a huge ($12B+) company. Her boss is a director, she's a woman. Her boss's boss is a VP, also a woman. They work for the CEO, a woman. My wife's salary is roughly on par with my own at a similar level.

Even with all that, my wife has several times expressed that she doesn't love the stress of her job, she doesn't necessarily want more responsibility which will create more stress, and she would rather stay home with our two daughters. Housework doesn't enter that, because we farm most of it out. We save more than half of my wife's salary (will go way up when we stop paying $2k+/mo for child care) with the express purpose of allowing my wife to retire early.

But based on this thread, I'm hearing my wife doesn't really want to stay home, even if she thinks she does. I'm hearing it's society telling her she wants to stay home. I'm hearing that unless she is working at the same level as me, it's the patriarchy, and it's because I don't help out enough around the house or whatever, and if I question any of that, I'm an idiot man denying the patriarchy.

What it really sounds like is an assumption my wife, or many women, don't have free will. I have a hard time reconciling that. I went so far to ask my wife last night if she feels her career has been hamstrung because she was a woman; she told me honestly she felt the opposite, she thought she was hired a couple times because she was a woman, and that her leadership team supports her precisely because she is a high-achieving woman and they want more women to achieve. And she worried that they were going to push her too high and it would ultimately mean she had more responsibility than she wanted to deal with.

So again, when I read that "unless half of business c-suite leaders are women" and I look at my wife who I assume is somewhat typical, I just have a hard time with it. I don't mean to deny anything, I don't mean to minimize anything, I just legitimately feel that she knows more about what she wants than anyone else, and there isn't an ulterior force holding her back. She doesn't have the desire. I do. Most men I know do. Most women I know have at least some inkling that they'd rather be home with their kids all day. Take it for what you will.

(Purely rhetorically, would your wife consider it a compliment to be told she is "somewhat typical"?)

Also: anecdata. Also, at an individual level it is difficult or impossible, other than in more extreme cases, to conclusively demonstrate the sort of effects of the patriarchy which become profoundly obvious at the macro level. See also: Black Lives Matter.

You don't have to fanboy the bad ones, you shouldn't fanboy the bad ones. The point is that the good ones should get fanboyed.

I do this within reason. If a woman is achieving to a high level in any activity that I'm interested I think it's great. I don't ensure that I fanboy women and men equally. I don't make gender an issue. I don't fanboy many people either.

A good question is should everyone really be on this forum ? It was started by a man. Admittedly it was just one man but is this forum just another example of the patriarchy ? I don't believe in the patriarchy but can anyone who believes in the patriarchy and equal outcomes really frequent this webpage and/or forum. Should we all up and leave and go to a female run FIRE site ?

Whether or not you like it, we live in a patriarchy. Avoiding white male dominated stuff would radically limit the things you can do. You wouldn't be able to go to court, talk with political representatives, buy lumber (or hire a contractor for anything around the house), have your computer fixed, contact fire or police services in an emergency, buy oil, trade on the stock market, bank, etc.

Do you honestly think that this is a reasonable approach to take? If so, why?

I think that if we want to discuss the topic rationally and logically we have to start talking in a more open and honest fashion. So the patriarchy is something that has been made up in someone's head. That is a factual comment. It doesn't exist in a mathematical formula and it can't be proven.

I'm not sure I understand the point of what you're saying here.

Laws don't exist in a mathematical formula and I'd have a tough time proving to you that they exist without referencing the work of experts . . . but they certainly do exist and impact your life. This is true even though laws are something that has been made up in someone's head.

So you can't state whether I like it or not we live in a patriarchy. I completely disagree with this comment. I'd argue that the social system that we have is complex and there are lots of parts that are dominated via extreme leftist feminist (I think I'm more a middle left person) viewpoints.

My statements were based on a definition of the term 'patriarchy' as commonly used by experts. That fully supports the usage that was made. What definition of the term are you using that contradicts it, and where did you find come across it?

Your opinion regarding 'extreme leftist feminist' domination of society is an interesting one. What mathematical formula exists that you're using to prove that this is so? (At least I'm assuming that you have a mathematical formula to prove that it's the case . . . otherwise you're being pretty inconsistent.)

(Purely rhetorically, would your wife consider it a compliment to be told she is "somewhat typical"?)

Yes, I think she would. What's the counter, she is "atypical"? I think she's "outstanding" in many respects, but in terms of upper middle class suburban white women, yeah, she is "pretty typical". She likes her SUV, starbucks, yoga, and Nordstrom, and dressing her daughters in cute clothes. She's a suburban mom :)

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Also: anecdata. Also, at an individual level it is difficult or impossible, other than in more extreme cases, to conclusively demonstrate the sort of effects of the patriarchy which become profoundly obvious at the macro level. See also: Black Lives Matter.

And I tried to caveat the hell out of my post that she is just ONE example, and I get that.

Feminists don't want women to go pursue careers they dont want. They want women to have the CHOICE to pursue whatever career or lack of career they want, and for men to have the same choice as well, and for neither gender to be held back by assumptions or preconceived notions of what their gender SHOULD want or be good at.

Let's say we were in a magical world where there was no patriarchy, and the split of CEOs was not 50/50. And I'm not talking about CEOs like "Make $20M a year and work three hours a day from your beach house" I'm talking about real world CEOs of "work basically 120+ hours a week under crushing pressure and move seamlessly from topic to topic and defend your decisions to shareholders and a board and other senior leaders and be expected to drop what you are doing at every second to answer some board member's stupid whim..."

Would it be an issue that more women than rose to a level that saw that lifestyle, really saw it from working a couple levels away from it, and self-selected out? I'm asking honestly.

Feminists don't want women to go pursue careers they dont want. They want women to have the CHOICE to pursue whatever career or lack of career they want, and for men to have the same choice as well, and for neither gender to be held back by assumptions or preconceived notions of what their gender SHOULD want or be good at.

Let's say we were in a magical world where there was no patriarchy, and the split of CEOs was not 50/50. And I'm not talking about CEOs like "Make $20M a year and work three hours a day from your beach house" I'm talking about real world CEOs of "work basically 120+ hours a week under crushing pressure and move seamlessly from topic to topic and defend your decisions to shareholders and a board and other senior leaders and be expected to drop what you are doing at every second to answer some board member's stupid whim..."

Would it be an issue that more women than rose to a level that saw that lifestyle, really saw it from working a couple levels away from it, and self-selected out? I'm asking honestly.

Too many confounding variables. First, lets get rid of patriarchy, then we'll see where things shake out. I do know that we are such powerfully social creatures, that we'll accept as normal whatever we see others doing. So, if we see men in power putting other men into power, that'll seem normal. If we see men in power putting women into power, that'll seem weird. And it'll seem weird for a long time, until we hit a tipping point, after which it won't seem weird anymore and people won't even think about it.

We saw a similar tipping point re: gay marriage and general acceptance of gay people into "normal" society. It wasn't always like that.

And for the record, my concern with patriarchy is less around cultural issues and more about power. As long as men hold the keys to the upper echelons of wealth and power, and as long as we haven't reached the tipping point where women in power seems normal, we're going to keep perpetuating this cycle of "well women just don't want to work as hard as men do in order to be super successful". In fact that reminds me of the racist arguments of my relatives in Texas when they earnestly explained to me that black people "can't make it because they just don't work as hard".

Feminists don't want women to go pursue careers they dont want. They want women to have the CHOICE to pursue whatever career or lack of career they want, and for men to have the same choice as well, and for neither gender to be held back by assumptions or preconceived notions of what their gender SHOULD want or be good at.

Let's say we were in a magical world where there was no patriarchy, and the split of CEOs was not 50/50. And I'm not talking about CEOs like "Make $20M a year and work three hours a day from your beach house" I'm talking about real world CEOs of "work basically 120+ hours a week under crushing pressure and move seamlessly from topic to topic and defend your decisions to shareholders and a board and other senior leaders and be expected to drop what you are doing at every second to answer some board member's stupid whim..."

Would it be an issue that more women than rose to a level that saw that lifestyle, really saw it from working a couple levels away from it, and self-selected out? I'm asking honestly.

Since very few people are suited to that type of work, the vast majority of people already opt out/are forced to opt out due to lack of aptitude or availability. If we are speaking only of the few people who do reach the level where that type of job becomes a true possibility, then yes I would consider it an issue if in the magical world men and women reached that level equally but only women chose to opt out while men didn't. But I prefer not to work in hypothetical what-ifs and instead on what current issues we can solve with the tools and resources that we do possess. Some things that I believe would narrow the gender gap at leadership levels, in no particular order, and which must be accomplished partly by changing laws and partly by changing social norms:1. paid parental leave that is awarded equally for men and women 2. lessen the expectation of working ridiculous hours to "get ahead", which forces primary breadwinners to spend too much time working away from families at the expense of their health and well being, and causes primary caregivers to dial back careers to pick up the slack in household and eldercare/childcare duties3. affordable and available daycare and after school programs4. pay equity studies at every level of companies followed by adjusted salaries and back pay to end gender based pay discrimination5. affordable and available birth control and abortion6. end the stigma of stay at home dads and working moms7. penalize companies who fire or fail to hire pregnant and childbearing age women8. end the grooming of boys to be aggressive and unemotional while girls are groomed to be polite and accommodating (among other gender based socialization)9. stop favouring rapists over victims and use the law to punish sexual harrassers, abusers and rapists, including in the workplace10. provide aid to people escaping domestic violence

Not every item on the list is directly related to the workplace, but the effects of not doing the things on list help perpetuate and maintain the patriarchy, and prevent both women and men from reaching their full potential and economic output.Taking most of those steps would lessen the impacts of the patriarchy and create a more equal society. Notice also that most of those are useful to men as well, and will likely result in healthier, more balanced and tight-knit families and communities as well. In the short term, companies and workplaces and people will struggle to adjust, and some steps need to be implemented gradually or will only result gradually, but I believe that end result would be beneficial to individuals and society.So back to the original question which included a hypothetical "world without patriarchy", we would have to do most of whats on that list and more to even get there, and once we did I would be very surprised if there was still such a huge gender imbalance in top leadership positions.

Since people are talking about anecdotes, I'll tell my own. I will skip to: being a post doc and research associate in a science field. My direct supervisor was an older female. Awesome right, females mentoring females? She was very productive and a good mentor in that respect. However, she grew up in a time where females had to really fight to be there, and internalized those beliefs, including that you had to be even more competitive, productive, ball busting than a man, and have no vunerabilities or deficits (which included, being a mother). Things were going well. I was productive. In order to insure my job security, we co-wrote and were funded for a multi-year major grant. I waited until then to get pregnant. And when I did, even though I did everything by the book (when I informed her, organizing leave and covering my job duties while out, only taking 8 weeks leave), her demeanor changed towards me. It started with mild hostility and harassment and ended with her escalating and creating an openly hostile work environment, including trying to forbid me from pumping so I could breast feed, and being berated for having a photo of my child in my office. And yes, firing me without cause. I know you will say, this isn't possible (this happened early 2000's) there are laws against it. But for most people especially if you are are junior, it is better just to leave and find another job than risk being blacklisted by suing your employer. I had to leave a field I invested 5 years in, because I chose to get pregnant. I'm sure I am not the only one.

I also agree that things have gotten BETTER. After I left that university, I heard through the grapevine that additional protections were made for post-docs and research associates so they would not be penalized or targeted if they got pregnant. And unlike me, they could use accrued sick leave from their post-doc to cover or be paid for their time out on leave (I was told my 3 years of accrued sick leave during the post-doc portion could not be used, so most of my leave was unpaid).

2. lessen the expectation of working ridiculous hours to "get ahead", which forces primary breadwinners to spend too much time working away from families at the expense of their health and well being, and causes primary caregivers to dial back careers to pick up the slack in household and eldercare/childcare duties

That sounds awesome. How in the world are going to do it? My team is myself plus 5 people under me. I have two open headcount (one person transferred, one person moved to a different role, neither backfilled) on my team that I "can't afford" to fill. Filling them would go a long way towards reducing the workload on the rest of the team. How can you force the company to do that? Yeah, in fantasyland it sounds great, in reality...

2. lessen the expectation of working ridiculous hours to "get ahead", which forces primary breadwinners to spend too much time working away from families at the expense of their health and well being, and causes primary caregivers to dial back careers to pick up the slack in household and eldercare/childcare duties

That sounds awesome. How in the world are going to do it? My team is myself plus 5 people under me. I have two open headcount (one person transferred, one person moved to a different role, neither backfilled) on my team that I "can't afford" to fill. Filling them would go a long way towards reducing the workload on the rest of the team. How can you force the company to do that? Yeah, in fantasyland it sounds great, in reality...

Require paid overtime for hours over 40 a week, and I think a lot of employers would find new employees pretty quick.

2. lessen the expectation of working ridiculous hours to "get ahead", which forces primary breadwinners to spend too much time working away from families at the expense of their health and well being, and causes primary caregivers to dial back careers to pick up the slack in household and eldercare/childcare duties

That sounds awesome. How in the world are going to do it? My team is myself plus 5 people under me. I have two open headcount (one person transferred, one person moved to a different role, neither backfilled) on my team that I "can't afford" to fill. Filling them would go a long way towards reducing the workload on the rest of the team. How can you force the company to do that? Yeah, in fantasyland it sounds great, in reality...

Require paid overtime for hours over 40 a week, and I think a lot of employers would find new employees pretty quick.

If a company really wanted to make it happen they would do so. They are cheap and lazy and count on the remaining people to do essentially unpaid or additional work. Which leads to resentment. If the rubber hit the road, they would make sure the work was covered. How do I know? At the same Medical Center, a particular cancer clinic ended up having multiple staff members (doctors, NP, and PAs) become pregnant at the same time, and thus taking leave at the same time. Shit happens. The hospital funded additional staff so that patients could be covered during that shortfall. We got a man to the moon, we can figure this stuff out too, if the culture supports it.

2. lessen the expectation of working ridiculous hours to "get ahead", which forces primary breadwinners to spend too much time working away from families at the expense of their health and well being, and causes primary caregivers to dial back careers to pick up the slack in household and eldercare/childcare duties

That sounds awesome. How in the world are going to do it? My team is myself plus 5 people under me. I have two open headcount (one person transferred, one person moved to a different role, neither backfilled) on my team that I "can't afford" to fill. Filling them would go a long way towards reducing the workload on the rest of the team. How can you force the company to do that? Yeah, in fantasyland it sounds great, in reality...

Require paid overtime for hours over 40 a week, and I think a lot of employers would find new employees pretty quick.

If a company really wanted to make it happen they would do so. They are cheap and lazy and count on the remaining people to do essentially unpaid or additional work. Which leads to resentment. If the rubber hit the road, they would make sure the work was covered. How do I know? At the same Medical Center, a particular cancer clinic ended up having multiple staff members (doctors, NP, and PAs) become pregnant at the same time, and thus taking leave at the same time. Shit happens. The hospital funded additional staff so that patients could be covered during that shortfall. We got a man to the moon, we can figure this stuff out too, if there is will for it.

Great point! And this is precisely why MMM exists. You make a lot of money but have a crappy work environment. Time to save up & FIRE. I mean, if workplaces were better, do you really think we'd have a bunch of high income people wanting to shut off the firehose of money by retiring? No, it's only because of EXACTLY this point above that MMM and FIRE exist at all.

I will 100% agree that women perform vastly more "emotional labor" than men. Full stop.

That said, I would want to further explore what percentage of "emotional labor" is created or influenced by men, versus women.

For instance:

My wife yesterday remember to get a birthday card for my brother in law (my sister's husband). She would rightly point out that is her doing "my" emotional labor for "my" family (ignoring that we are one big family by marriage, blah blah).

That is a fair point.

My counterpoint would be that neither I nor my brother in law give a shit if he gets a birthday card or not. The only ones who MIGHT give a shit (but probably not) are my sister or maybe my mom if for some reason they thought we were forgetting about each other as siblings, but even then, I don't think they'd care.

I would wager a huge percentage of emotional labor is imposed on women by women. Men are too dumb, insensitive, self-focused, whatever, to care about a lot of it. Is that "patriarchy"? I don't know. If it is, how do women propose men try and fix it? Every time my wife complains about something like that and I say "well just don't do it then" I get the angry look. So I don't know what to tell you.

From one cave man's perspective on that school dance, there are three possible answers:

1. People who are stay at home parents (granted, usually women) can volunteer; people who work can donate money or things to support2. They can schedule the dance at night, when more parents can volunteer (I happily volunteer to help out with stuff not during work hours)3. If 1 and 2 can't happen, no dance. Sorry, a kid's dance doesn't trump my need to be at work earning a living.

If 1 through 3 are not palatable, one must ask one's self if the pressure to miss work to do this stuff is really "society" and "the patriarchy" or is it one's own sense of guilt/responsibility, and while valid, not really something you can project onto someone else?

This has come up in my marriage. Both my husband and I hate cleaning, but before we had company over, I used to get stressed and go into a mad cleaning frenzy (also making sure we had food, drinks, etc. available), while he wished we just wouldn't bother.

We considered why we had these different feelings toward hosting, and I realized it was because I thought any judgment of the visitors would come down on me, not him. If things were messy and we weren't able to host adequately, no one would see it as his fault, so it's just not something he would worry about. Whereas I had something to lose in terms of social status if I come across as a "bad" wife with a dirty house and no refreshments to offer guests.

I think all of this does come down to how we were both socialized. As a kid I learned that it was my job (as a female of the household) to make visitors feel comfortable. That you should anticipate all the guest's needs and have the drinks refilled and plates cleared before they even realize what they want. My family is conservative and is very into gender norms, so I was explicitly taught that this was my responsibility, because I was a girl. Meanwhile my husband went through life without absorbing these lessons.

We talked about this and adjusted in a few ways. My husband now does help clean and host on an equal level. But also, I relaxed some of my standards and let go of the need to be a perfect wife in the eyes of the world. As long as the place isn't totally disgusting and we have at least a few snacks to bring out for company, we're doing okay.

I do think what you might call patriarchal cultural assumptions created the situation, but once we recognized that, we changed our behavior and moved beyond the weird gender norms of the past. Progress is possible!

I will 100% agree that women perform vastly more "emotional labor" than men. Full stop.

That said, I would want to further explore what percentage of "emotional labor" is created or influenced by men, versus women.

For instance:

My wife yesterday remember to get a birthday card for my brother in law (my sister's husband). She would rightly point out that is her doing "my" emotional labor for "my" family (ignoring that we are one big family by marriage, blah blah).

That is a fair point.

My counterpoint would be that neither I nor my brother in law give a shit if he gets a birthday card or not. The only ones who MIGHT give a shit (but probably not) are my sister or maybe my mom if for some reason they thought we were forgetting about each other as siblings, but even then, I don't think they'd care.

I would wager a huge percentage of emotional labor is imposed on women by women. Men are too dumb, insensitive, self-focused, whatever, to care about a lot of it. Is that "patriarchy"? I don't know. If it is, how do women propose men try and fix it? Every time my wife complains about something like that and I say "well just don't do it then" I get the angry look. So I don't know what to tell you.

From one cave man's perspective on that school dance, there are three possible answers:

1. People who are stay at home parents (granted, usually women) can volunteer; people who work can donate money or things to support2. They can schedule the dance at night, when more parents can volunteer (I happily volunteer to help out with stuff not during work hours)3. If 1 and 2 can't happen, no dance. Sorry, a kid's dance doesn't trump my need to be at work earning a living.

If 1 through 3 are not palatable, one must ask one's self if the pressure to miss work to do this stuff is really "society" and "the patriarchy" or is it one's own sense of guilt/responsibility, and while valid, not really something you can project onto someone else?

This has come up in my marriage. Both my husband and I hate cleaning, but before we had company over, I used to get stressed and go into a mad cleaning frenzy (also making sure we had food, drinks, etc. available), while he wished we just wouldn't bother.

We considered why we had these different feelings toward hosting, and I realized it was because I thought any judgment of the visitors would come down on me, not him. If things were messy and we weren't able to host adequately, no one would see it as his fault, so it's just not something he would worry about. Whereas I had something to lose in terms of social status if I come across as a "bad" wife with a dirty house and no refreshments to offer guests.

I think all of this does come down to how we were both socialized. As a kid I learned that it was my job (as a female of the household) to make visitors feel comfortable. That you should anticipate all the guest's needs and have the drinks refilled and plates cleared before they even realize what they want. My family is conservative and is very into gender norms, so I was explicitly taught that this was my responsibility, because I was a girl. Meanwhile my husband went through life without absorbing these lessons.

We talked about this and adjusted in a few ways. My husband now does help clean and host on an equal level. But also, I relaxed some of my standards and let go of the need to be a perfect wife in the eyes of the world. As long as the place isn't totally disgusting and we have at least a few snacks to bring out for company, we're doing okay.

I do think what you might call patriarchal cultural assumptions created the situation, but once we recognized that, we changed our behavior and moved beyond the weird gender norms of the past. Progress is possible!

Yep. Progress is possible. And as you have shown, the first step is recognizing that the patriarchal cultural assumptions exist, and affect us in ways we are not always immediately aware of. For progress to happen, learning has to happen first.

What's the central point of contention here? On one side we have a group of people claiming that there's a complex and insidious system of social norms, expectations, stereotypes, and just-so stories that hampers the full flourishing of women as a class. That group agrees that the system is not a conspiracy and has no leaders; instead, it is self-perpetuating. On the other side we have a group of people claiming that it's self-evident that there can be no such system. They cite various reasons: "I've never noticed it"; "women in my personal and professional sphere seem to be fine"; "math"; and the big winner, "women and men are just naturally different, so of course they'll have different social roles and there's nothing wrong with that because nature."

I can only speak for myself, but since I raised the last bolded point and I don't mean it to support the first bolded I want to address.

Again, let me be clear: there have been a zillion examples of how women were oppressed, and though some/most have been lifted, I understand a lot of the effects are still in place. I got it. I certainly agree with it. I do not mean anything I say to dispute it.

But I can only react to what I see. My wife, an educated, successful professional with over a dozen direct reports, works for a huge ($12B+) company. Her boss is a director, she's a woman. Her boss's boss is a VP, also a woman. They work for the CEO, a woman. My wife's salary is roughly on par with my own at a similar level.

Even with all that, my wife has several times expressed that she doesn't love the stress of her job, she doesn't necessarily want more responsibility which will create more stress, and she would rather stay home with our two daughters. Housework doesn't enter that, because we farm most of it out. We save more than half of my wife's salary (will go way up when we stop paying $2k+/mo for child care) with the express purpose of allowing my wife to retire early.

But based on this thread, I'm hearing my wife doesn't really want to stay home, even if she thinks she does. I'm hearing it's society telling her she wants to stay home. I'm hearing that unless she is working at the same level as me, it's the patriarchy, and it's because I don't help out enough around the house or whatever, and if I question any of that, I'm an idiot man denying the patriarchy.

What it really sounds like is an assumption my wife, or many women, don't have free will. I have a hard time reconciling that. I went so far to ask my wife last night if she feels her career has been hamstrung because she was a woman; she told me honestly she felt the opposite, she thought she was hired a couple times because she was a woman, and that her leadership team supports her precisely because she is a high-achieving woman and they want more women to achieve. And she worried that they were going to push her too high and it would ultimately mean she had more responsibility than she wanted to deal with.

So again, when I read that "unless half of business c-suite leaders are women" and I look at my wife who I assume is somewhat typical, I just have a hard time with it. I don't mean to deny anything, I don't mean to minimize anything, I just legitimately feel that she knows more about what she wants than anyone else, and there isn't an ulterior force holding her back. She doesn't have the desire. I do. Most men I know do. Most women I know have at least some inkling that they'd rather be home with their kids all day. Take it for what you will.

You missed my entire point. Like, my entire point, start to finish. It's as if I said "green isn't blue" and you responded with "but green is blue."

Again: Do not confuse what is with what should be. They are not the same.

(TL;DR: Apologies for the length.)

There appears to be a lot of sentiment along this line of thought in this thread. I think most (if not all) of us agree there is sexism in the world. I think we also agree that the laws of the United States (and most industrialized countries) have in general been moving toward the equalization of rights between men and women as a class. I haven't seen anyone here say that this is a bad thing.

I think where most of us disagree is in what society should be, and what society should do to attempt to achieve this outcome. In order to flesh this out in my mind, I'm going to write down my thoughts, though I'm not intending to put words into anyone's mouth.

Let's call two different modes of thought with respect to what society should be Approach A and Approach B.

Approach A generally believes that "patriarchy" is an unnatural social construct that has repressed women from achieving their full potential (slavery might be a good analogy). Absent patriarchy, most occupations would be equally represented by both sexes; or, even if the occupations would not naturally be represented equally, there is a societal benefit to artificially imposing an equal representation (at least until the vestiges of patriarchy fade away). An unequal representation (whether in occupation, pay, hiring practices, etc.) is indicative that patriarchy is still influencing the potential achievement of women. Using social government intervention is acceptable to achieve equal representation in the targeted statistics.

Approach B believes that all social constructs are unnatural. Governments are instituted among men to achieve a social construct that best represents their ideals. Using the classical liberal approach, men and women should be represented in occupations in accordance with their desires and their abilities to contribute. The consumer and employer markets look at their contributions and potential ability to contribute. If governments secure rights but allow individuals to make free choices, results will tend toward the most natural and successful equilibrium(s), and hence working backward from the desired result is not the best objective (especially since so many people have different objectives).

I don't feel there is a right or wrong answer here, just different approaches. I think some societies have used more of Approach A, whereas others have tended toward Approach B.

Regardless, let's use the two approaches to take a view of one of the pieces of evidence cited by Toque. I'll use the Scientific American article, as it had a link to the peer-reviewed report which appears well-researched. The evidence shows pretty clear gender bias. Approach A would cite this as evidence that patriarchy is alive and well.

As someone who tends to take more of the Approach B, here's my take for possible reasons that the gender bias exists in that study. a) Certainly, there is some sexism in the world, which probably contributed somewhat to the results (though the study actually reported more bias occurred by the female scientists). b) Subconsciously, the scientists are probably aware the women are more likely than men to leave the workforce at some point, making a man more valuable (on average) over the long-term. c) Difference in perceived competence might be explained by the observation that females on average score better at literacy than males (https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-gender-gap-in-reading/), so that by simple statistical inference, two equal resumes (a primarily literary task) would imply a greater probability that the male is better at science. d) Even without considering a literacy advantage, scientists can be shown to be making the optimal decision for science by multiplying the potential of each candidate times the probability that candidate will stay in the field (hypothetically, if women are 20% more likely to drop out of the field, then they should present a better resume than males in order to have similar contributions). e) Lower offers of pay to females might be considered a shrewd business decision, as women are known to accept lower pay (on average) (and yes, this is a chicken-and-the-egg riddle). f) Finally, though the effect size in the study was significant, it should be noted that with 127 participants, there was significant overlap of scores.

Conclusions: Bias, yes, but sexism, not necessarily. A subconscious bias may be toward the optimal outcome for the business or science based on the evidence available.

I'll close this incredibly long post with a similar economic example: Young males are charged more for car insurance than females of the same age, but nobody is crying sexism, because the evidence is clear that young males tend to have more accidents. I was not particularly happy about this fact as a young man (since my spotless driving record should have been just as worthy as a female's spotless record), but I accept that the different charges aren't a form of bias but rather the optimal decision by the insurance companies.

Every group of people in existence has come together to form social constructs. They're one of the most natural things I can imagine. Given their prevalence through history, I'd say that patriarchal societies are also quite natural. I think we can do better than base impulses.

That's why it's important to recognize and minimize the negative effects of patriarchy.

Approach A generally believes that "patriarchy" is an unnatural social construct that has repressed women from achieving their full potential (slavery might be a good analogy). Absent patriarchy, most occupations would be equally represented by both sexes; or, even if the occupations would not naturally be represented equally, there is a societal benefit to artificially imposing an equal representation (at least until the vestiges of patriarchy fade away). An unequal representation (whether in occupation, pay, hiring practices, etc.) is indicative that patriarchy is still influencing the potential achievement of women. Using social government intervention is acceptable to achieve equal representation in the targeted statistics.

I'm fine with this up until the bolded part. No, I don't think government intervention is the best way to eliminate patriarchy (nor did I ever say it was). Government follows public opinion. Patriarchy will go away when people stop having norms and expectations that are gendered. How to make that happen? Beats the hell out of me. Trying to get people to see reason certainly doesn't work (cf. this thread).

Approach A generally believes that "patriarchy" is an unnatural social construct that has repressed women from achieving their full potential (slavery might be a good analogy). Absent patriarchy, most occupations would be equally represented by both sexes; or, even if the occupations would not naturally be represented equally, there is a societal benefit to artificially imposing an equal representation (at least until the vestiges of patriarchy fade away). An unequal representation (whether in occupation, pay, hiring practices, etc.) is indicative that patriarchy is still influencing the potential achievement of women. Using social government intervention is acceptable to achieve equal representation in the targeted statistics.

I'm fine with this up until the bolded part. No, I don't think government intervention is the best way to eliminate patriarchy (nor did I ever say it was). Government follows public opinion. Patriarchy will go away when people stop having norms and expectations that are gendered. How to make that happen? Beats the hell out of me. Trying to get people to see reason certainly doesn't work (cf. this thread).

I disagree. I think threads like this are exactly what is needed to help make changes. Speaking only for myself, I used to be utterly blind to how different the world was for women vs men. I, also, thought feminists were just a bunch of whiners. But the more I saw the arguments and the facts presented, over time I changed my view. Change is possible, it just takes time. Some people see reason faster than others. Some people with never see it. But there's definitely a tipping point, and these types of conversations are one of the few things that actually can move the needle.

So don't get discouraged, keep putting the facts out there. Also remember that steveo or Chris22 might never, ever change their mind. But in the end they don't really matter. The people that matter are the people in the middle. The ones that are reading the thread but probably not actively posting. When it comes to making change, it's these people that are most open to it. At least that's what I tell myself, haha.

Every group of people in existence has come together to form social constructs. They're one of the most natural things I can imagine. Given their prevalence through history, I'd say that patriarchal societies are also quite natural. I think we can do better than base impulses.

That's why it's important to recognize and minimize the negative effects of patriarchy.

Ok, let's say patriarchy is natural. In that case, I believe the burden of proof falls on those indicating it is wrong to show that it is immoral or unjust (or at least the current remnants of it). On top of that, they need to come up with a better solution (plenty of input on that here in this thread, though I and others disagree that some of these measures are helpful). Finally, and here's the important part that seems to be missing, they need to convince a significant majority of people that the status quo is wrong: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/10/01/women-more-than-men-adjust-their-careers-for-family-life/. I really have a hard time believing that it is right to want an equal distribution in the workforce when a vast majority of both males and females do not.

In my entire career, though I have seen veiled sexism among the employees where I work, at the management level and higher there were huge incentives to recruit, promote, and retain women. Management regularly attended SWE events, hired female engineers, actively promoted them over male engineers, and gave higher ratings (that I am aware of). These were all very productive women, so I don't have a gripe. But you know what? There was still a paucity of them, and those that were around tended to leave quicker than the guys. Patriarchy? Maybe, but I guarantee none of them left because of discrimination.

Every group of people in existence has come together to form social constructs. They're one of the most natural things I can imagine. Given their prevalence through history, I'd say that patriarchal societies are also quite natural. I think we can do better than base impulses.

That's why it's important to recognize and minimize the negative effects of patriarchy.

Ok, let's say patriarchy is natural. In that case, I believe the burden of proof falls on those indicating it is wrong to show that it is immoral or unjust (or at least the current remnants of it). On top of that, they need to come up with a better solution (plenty of input on that here in this thread, though I and others disagree that some of these measures are helpful). Finally, and here's the important part that seems to be missing, they need to convince a significant majority of people that the status quo is wrong: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/10/01/women-more-than-men-adjust-their-careers-for-family-life/. I really have a hard time believing that it is right to want an equal distribution in the workforce when a vast majority of both males and females do not.

In my entire career, though I have seen veiled sexism among the employees where I work, at the management level and higher there were huge incentives to recruit, promote, and retain women. Management regularly attended SWE events, hired female engineers, actively promoted them over male engineers, and gave higher ratings (that I am aware of). These were all very productive women, so I don't have a gripe. But you know what? There was still a paucity of them, and those that were around tended to leave quicker than the guys. Patriarchy? Maybe, but I guarantee none of them left because of discrimination.

Dude, you do realize that your argument is exactly the same as the one used to justify slavery (and later, Jim Crow laws). "It's the natural order"; "They just aren't as smart/committed/hard working"; "But most people don't see a problem". Etc...

Approach A generally believes that "patriarchy" is an unnatural social construct that has repressed women from achieving their full potential (slavery might be a good analogy). Absent patriarchy, most occupations would be equally represented by both sexes; or, even if the occupations would not naturally be represented equally, there is a societal benefit to artificially imposing an equal representation (at least until the vestiges of patriarchy fade away). An unequal representation (whether in occupation, pay, hiring practices, etc.) is indicative that patriarchy is still influencing the potential achievement of women. Using social government intervention is acceptable to achieve equal representation in the targeted statistics.

I'm fine with this up until the bolded part. No, I don't think government intervention is the best way to eliminate patriarchy (nor did I ever say it was). Government follows public opinion. Patriarchy will go away when people stop having norms and expectations that are gendered. How to make that happen? Beats the hell out of me. Trying to get people to see reason certainly doesn't work (cf. this thread).

I think how my opinion differs from yours the most is that I have a real hard time believing that people will ever stop having norms and expectations that are gendered (for a variety of reasons, some sexist but most not). (I certainly agree with you that government follows public opinion; it is worth noting that some rather unpopular government intervention with regards to affirmative action and school desegregation probably did a lot to help improve racial norms and expectations in the South.)

As far as getting people to see reason, just because people follow different reasoning than you doesn't make them necessarily wrong. As several have elegantly pointed out, none of this is math (or science). I think someone earlier equated not believing that all traces of patriarchy should be eliminated to not believing in global warming. This is a poor comparison, in my opinion. The better comparison would be those that don't think we should do anything about the current state of things (for either issue). Under that metric, people can use the facts to express their opinions and persuade others on the best course of action.

Every group of people in existence has come together to form social constructs. They're one of the most natural things I can imagine. Given their prevalence through history, I'd say that patriarchal societies are also quite natural. I think we can do better than base impulses.

That's why it's important to recognize and minimize the negative effects of patriarchy.

Ok, let's say patriarchy is natural. In that case, I believe the burden of proof falls on those indicating it is wrong to show that it is immoral or unjust (or at least the current remnants of it). On top of that, they need to come up with a better solution (plenty of input on that here in this thread, though I and others disagree that some of these measures are helpful). Finally, and here's the important part that seems to be missing, they need to convince a significant majority of people that the status quo is wrong: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/10/01/women-more-than-men-adjust-their-careers-for-family-life/. I really have a hard time believing that it is right to want an equal distribution in the workforce when a vast majority of both males and females do not.

In my entire career, though I have seen veiled sexism among the employees where I work, at the management level and higher there were huge incentives to recruit, promote, and retain women. Management regularly attended SWE events, hired female engineers, actively promoted them over male engineers, and gave higher ratings (that I am aware of). These were all very productive women, so I don't have a gripe. But you know what? There was still a paucity of them, and those that were around tended to leave quicker than the guys. Patriarchy? Maybe, but I guarantee none of them left because of discrimination.

Dude, you do realize that your argument is exactly the same as the one used to justify slavery (and later, Jim Crow laws). "It's the natural order"; "They just aren't as smart/committed/hard working"; "But most people don't see a problem". Etc...

GuitarStv was the one who said it was the natural order, I just went along that line of thought. That being said, my argument is very different from slavery. The slaves did not want to remain slaves, but the majority of women do not want to work fulltime after having kids (according to the article posted earlier). I even said most of the women I have worked with were extremely competent and it was a pleasure working with them.

Edit to add: I think a large part of what is being attributed to patriarchy is probably a byproduct of the self-selection by women when raising a family and awareness of that self-selection by society at large. Needless to say, self-selection was not an attribute of slavery.

random people: blah blah patriarchydudebro: “my wife wants to stay home and bake cookies! how dare you suggest she doesn’t have free will!”random people: blah blah patriarchydudebro: “I would never be willing to give up my job and take care of my kids all day. It’s the natural order of things. I am super logical and mathematical and no emotions or external forces ever influence me.”

At this point, I have to assume that steveo is purposefully arguing against a straw man that includes a conspiracy of powerful men plotting in the shadows to control the world's culture since I've asked him how he's defining patriarchy twice now and he's failed to provide any kind of explanation for his references to controlling forces/conspiracies.

This is good. Its exactly the type of nuanced discussion that I'm trying to get people to see. Once you realise that this isn't the case then we move into rational and logical discussions that are based on realising that we have created this society. It's not a patriarchal conglomerate and therefore a lot of the simplistic arguments that people want to make to prove the patriarchy exists shouldn't be being used.

Women are allowed to choose to stay at home if they can and they want too. They can choose not to go in certain careers. You enable free choice. The post above regarding women taking their husbands names is a valid point. People get to choose how they live their lives.

You can't just state because the outcome is the one that we judge as not being ideal then you get to tell everyone why it has occurred and what needs to be done to fix it especially in such a simplistic way was stating the patriarchy caused it. There could be 1000's of different reasons and gender may be a trivial little issue.

I basically completely agree with your point. There is no patriarchal conglomerate controlling the world and women get to choose how they live their lives. The outcome is the outcome. Accept it and move on.

If you want to argue about specific issues that are creating an unequal society because of men dominating women I will support you 100%. I assume that same-sex marriage is not part of the patriarchy and I just recently voted and supported the rights for people to have same-sex marriages. My wife says our marriage has always consisted of the sex being pretty much the same.

They want women to have the CHOICE to pursue whatever career or lack of career they want, and for men to have the same choice as well, and for neither gender to be held back by assumptions or preconceived notions of what their gender SHOULD want or be good at.

I completely support this and I'll go even further. This is pretty much the case right now. The world especially modern first world countries provide these opportunities. If we are talking about a different context than this such as women's rights in India or Saudi Arabia or something then I'd be prepared to talk about that issue.

For instance my nieces and nephews live in Saudi Arabia and are strict Muslims. The girls come out here to finish their schooling and they like it more over here because they can drive and have jobs etc. They can actually do whatever they want but they choose to abide by a lot of their religious traditions. They aren't an example of the patriarchy forcing them to wear a hijab and head care covering their face in public. They are doing that because they believe that is the right way to live their life.

I am not arguing against the right of women to do whatever they want within reason (people can't do everything they want). I'm just stating that focusing on outcome and trying to make an argument that women are discriminated against in today's environment is a pretty rough ask and you guys are definitely failing in getting your point across.

Ok, let's say patriarchy is natural. In that case, I believe the burden of proof falls on those indicating it is wrong to show that it is immoral or unjust (or at least the current remnants of it). On top of that, they need to come up with a better solution (plenty of input on that here in this thread, though I and others disagree that some of these measures are helpful). Finally, and here's the important part that seems to be missing, they need to convince a significant majority of people that the status quo is wrong: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/10/01/women-more-than-men-adjust-their-careers-for-family-life/. I really have a hard time believing that it is right to want an equal distribution in the workforce when a vast majority of both males and females do not.

In my entire career, though I have seen veiled sexism among the employees where I work, at the management level and higher there were huge incentives to recruit, promote, and retain women. Management regularly attended SWE events, hired female engineers, actively promoted them over male engineers, and gave higher ratings (that I am aware of). These were all very productive women, so I don't have a gripe. But you know what? There was still a paucity of them, and those that were around tended to leave quicker than the guys. Patriarchy? Maybe, but I guarantee none of them left because of discrimination.

There is heaps to discuss isn't there but we have to get past the simplistic and let's be honest delusional belief in some agressive patriarchy that actively discriminates against women. This doesn't exist.

It's much easier to state the patriarchy is the problem because women earn less than men than it is to look at details about why certain situations occur. It's much easier to focus on a broad very hard to define social system and state it is the cause of all problems against women than it is to look at details that are an issue that we can fix.

Current feminism and it's in my opinion absurd idea about the patriarchy requires simplistic thinking. It's end outcome is a regime like the one Pol Pot implemented where the only elites are the true believers.

We need to get past this view of the world because it doesn't allow people including women to make choices in relation to how they live their lives.

My statements were based on a definition of the term 'patriarchy' as commonly used by experts. That fully supports the usage that was made. What definition of the term are you using that contradicts it, and where did you find come across it?

Your opinion regarding 'extreme leftist feminist' domination of society is an interesting one. What mathematical formula exists that you're using to prove that this is so? (At least I'm assuming that you have a mathematical formula to prove that it's the case . . . otherwise you're being pretty inconsistent.)

Hang on a second here dude. I don't know these experts and honestly I don't care one little bit. I live in this society and I'm not stupid. I'm entitled to my opinion. I don't believe that there is an extreme feminist domination of society. There is clearly and this thread is a classic example a group of people who don't like any criticism of their world view and get upset if people don't agree 100% with their extremist viewpoint.

The idea of my comment of extreme leftist feminist domination of society was to show that I can easily pull out proof of a social theory that is completely opposite to the idea of the patriarchy being the dominant controlling theme of societies current state. I have just as good proof as people arguing about the patriarchy but don't think for one second that I believe in the idea of a group of extremist feminists controlling society and causing men to commit suicide. I'm sure that the issue is complex and would require critical thinking to try and get to the bottom of it.

I thought you mentioned those fields but law is a field where women are definitely available. The last lawyer I saw was a female. There are plenty of female doctors that you can see. Happy to discuss any other instances that you want to engage in and feel that they are white male dominated.

At this point, I have to assume that steveo is purposefully arguing against a straw man that includes a conspiracy of powerful men plotting in the shadows to control the world's culture since I've asked him how he's defining patriarchy twice now and he's failed to provide any kind of explanation for his references to controlling forces/conspiracies.

This is good. Its exactly the type of nuanced discussion that I'm trying to get people to see. Once you realise that this isn't the case then we move into rational and logical discussions that are based on realising that we have created this society. It's not a patriarchal conglomerate and therefore a lot of the simplistic arguments that people want to make to prove the patriarchy exists shouldn't be being used.

At this point, I have to assume that steveo is purposefully arguing against a straw man that includes a conspiracy of powerful men plotting in the shadows to control the world's culture since I've asked him how he's defining patriarchy twice now and he's failed to provide any kind of explanation for his references to controlling forces/conspiracies.

This is good. Its exactly the type of nuanced discussion that I'm trying to get people to see. Once you realise that this isn't the case then we move into rational and logical discussions that are based on realising that we have created this society. It's not a patriarchal conglomerate and therefore a lot of the simplistic arguments that people want to make to prove the patriarchy exists shouldn't be being used.

Literally no one on this thread has ever believed this was the case.

That is awesome. I assume therefore that you can accept that maybe your idea of the patriarchy isn't the reason behind any of your complaints about society. It'd be good if you could detail how you are discriminated against within society and we can maybe provide you with some help in relation to how to live your life.

You might think that you can't be a doctor and we could try and convince you that you could assuming you want to work that hard and have the intelligence to get into that field.

If there are issues where it's obvious that there is discrimination against you based on being female we may try and change that situation.

I'd love to help you out with any issue that you specifically are suffering from if I view it as a reasonable issue. Let's be honest but people sometimes blame everyone but themselves for how well they have lived their life.

Maybe just maybe the patriarchy isn't such a big issue in your life. Maybe just maybe you make it into a big issue when it doesn't have to be.

This thread has gotten so gross. Cressida, you're a hero for sticking it out.

Why are you guys so threatened by the assertion that we live in a patriarchal society?

This is pretty funny. I think it's pretty clear that it's not myself at least who is getting threatened.

I don't believe that we live in a patriarchal society. I think women on the whole have it great. I don't think women are discriminated against but if they are I will fight for their rights. I would fight for any human beings rights.

It'd be good if you could detail how you are discriminated against within society and we can maybe provide you with some help in relation to how to live your life.

You might think that you can't be a doctor and we could try and convince you that you could assuming you want to work that hard and have the intelligence to get into that field.

If there are issues where it's obvious that there is discrimination against you based on being female we may try and change that situation.

I'd love to help you out with any issue that you specifically are suffering from if I view it as a reasonable issue. Let's be honest but people sometimes blame everyone but themselves for how well they have lived their life.

Maybe just maybe the patriarchy isn't such a big issue in your life. Maybe just maybe you make it into a big issue when it doesn't have to be.

At what point are these not an issue or at least aren't a dumpster fire at the forefront of societal inequity? In a nutshell, I have a finite amount of empathy and I want to dole it out on high priority issues and not waste it on things largely solved or things that have had the rules changed for the good and many aren't even aware of how unfair it used to be (due to the fairness being taken for granted today with respect to that issue). Birth control is a big one, I'll grant you that. I definitely think it is worthwhile for me to continue to empathize with women over birth control and vote on policies that give women control over their bodies. No qualms with that one at all, let's keep fighting the good fight. But some of these...

In my circle I have several women married to men that did not change their last name at all, a few hyphenated couples, many couples who have hyphenated children, a man who changed his last name to his wife's. Little thought to my knowledge has been given to these "revolutionary" actions. Like, I realize the overall norm may still be to follow the patrilineal naming system but it's definitely becoming more and more common, even outside of professionals who are/were more likely to keep/hyphenate, to do whatever you want with a name. With my wife, we discussed this prior to marriage and she said she liked the ring of my last name more than hers so she wanted to change her name to match mine. Did the patriarchy influence her into this way of thinking and distaste for her own last name? /shrug She doesn't really care. I was open to changing my last name if she really wanted me to but I was more apathetic than anything, meaning default option is to keep as is (for both of us) was just fine. The last name issue just didn't move the needle that much. Would I have been absurd for taking my wife's last name? Cool, slap whatever label you want on that potential action. I would love to hear about a couple that broke up because a man demanded his future spouse take his last name and that request was refused. THAT I would call absurd.

The fact that some churches are sexist when it comes to the institution of marriage is something that will probably never be eradicated - even though more and more wedding ceremonies have nothing to do with religion or even take place in a church. Does it have to be 100% for this subcomponent of the patriarchy to be considered under control? I have never heard it stated that way as like a piece of property for only one person but it sounds plausible it happens somewhere. Usually I hear it asked to both people getting married and the terminology is not as property but more along the lines of supporting the newly established household. IMO, it's just a way to get parents/guardians/other important members involved in the ceremony. If a couple doesn't want sexist language in the ceremony, they should talk it over with their officiant about what they want.

I thank this thread for educating me about the older banking laws that existed that I had no idea about. But again, at what point can you move on? My wife wasn't aware either and there was never an innate desire on my end to wish there were some rules in place to give me more leverage over my wife or a prospective daughter for financial accounts. So, these older laws did exist but they didn't really leave much in the way of evidence to impact our little bubble. Now, surely remnants of the older rules might still affect others in certain ways but it continues to be diminished.

I addressed the concern you are raising in my comment #448. Anyone could have said "haven't we come far enough" at any moment between 5000 B.C. and today. And they would have been wrong then, and they are wrong now.

It'd be good if you could detail how you are discriminated against within society and we can maybe provide you with some help in relation to how to live your life.

You might think that you can't be a doctor and we could try and convince you that you could assuming you want to work that hard and have the intelligence to get into that field.

If there are issues where it's obvious that there is discrimination against you based on being female we may try and change that situation.

I'd love to help you out with any issue that you specifically are suffering from if I view it as a reasonable issue. Let's be honest but people sometimes blame everyone but themselves for how well they have lived their life.

Maybe just maybe the patriarchy isn't such a big issue in your life. Maybe just maybe you make it into a big issue when it doesn't have to be.

I'm reporting you for violating rule #1.

That is hilarious and it shows where you are coming from. Any alternative viewpoint to your own is not acceptable. I was trying to help out.

At what point are these not an issue or at least aren't a dumpster fire at the forefront of societal inequity? In a nutshell, I have a finite amount of empathy and I want to dole it out on high priority issues and not waste it on things largely solved or things that have had the rules changed for the good and many aren't even aware of how unfair it used to be (due to the fairness being taken for granted today with respect to that issue). Birth control is a big one, I'll grant you that. I definitely think it is worthwhile for me to continue to empathize with women over birth control and vote on policies that give women control over their bodies. No qualms with that one at all, let's keep fighting the good fight. But some of these...

In my circle I have several women married to men that did not change their last name at all, a few hyphenated couples, many couples who have hyphenated children, a man who changed his last name to his wife's. Little thought to my knowledge has been given to these "revolutionary" actions. Like, I realize the overall norm may still be to follow the patrilineal naming system but it's definitely becoming more and more common, even outside of professionals who are/were more likely to keep/hyphenate, to do whatever you want with a name. With my wife, we discussed this prior to marriage and she said she liked the ring of my last name more than hers so she wanted to change her name to match mine. Did the patriarchy influence her into this way of thinking and distaste for her own last name? /shrug She doesn't really care. I was open to changing my last name if she really wanted me to but I was more apathetic than anything, meaning default option is to keep as is (for both of us) was just fine. The last name issue just didn't move the needle that much. Would I have been absurd for taking my wife's last name? Cool, slap whatever label you want on that potential action. I would love to hear about a couple that broke up because a man demanded his future spouse take his last name and that request was refused. THAT I would call absurd.

The fact that some churches are sexist when it comes to the institution of marriage is something that will probably never be eradicated - even though more and more wedding ceremonies have nothing to do with religion or even take place in a church. Does it have to be 100% for this subcomponent of the patriarchy to be considered under control? I have never heard it stated that way as like a piece of property for only one person but it sounds plausible it happens somewhere. Usually I hear it asked to both people getting married and the terminology is not as property but more along the lines of supporting the newly established household. IMO, it's just a way to get parents/guardians/other important members involved in the ceremony. If a couple doesn't want sexist language in the ceremony, they should talk it over with their officiant about what they want.

I thank this thread for educating me about the older banking laws that existed that I had no idea about. But again, at what point can you move on? My wife wasn't aware either and there was never an innate desire on my end to wish there were some rules in place to give me more leverage over my wife or a prospective daughter for financial accounts. So, these older laws did exist but they didn't really leave much in the way of evidence to impact our little bubble. Now, surely remnants of the older rules might still affect others in certain ways but it continues to be diminished.

I addressed the concern you are raising in my comment #448. Anyone could have said "haven't we come far enough" at any moment between 5000 B.C. and today. And they would have been wrong then, and they are wrong now.

When did I say enough progress has been made about patriarchy? All I'm saying is there seems to hand-wringing for sub-categories of a larger topic where that amount of attention might be better focused. To use your example in comment #448, women voting - women can vote in the US. Does this mean that patriarchy doesn't exist in the US or that somehow an issue becoming legally equal washes away the systemic inequality with regard to that specific issue overnight? Of course not, but nothing wrong celebrating/accepting that freedom, normalizing it, and moving on to problems that still exist.

I replied to FrugalToque because several of the specific issues outlined sounds like an impossible standard must be met in order to equate to progress/success. It seems a little pessimistic, that's all.